#MenChallengingSexism23 Conference
The full programme for the Men Challening Sexism conference 2023 in Glasgow is now out. We have a brilliant line-up of speakers over the 2-day weekend, including Vaishnavi Sundar, Malcolm Clark, Michael Foran and many others. There are still some tickets available, so please invite your male friends and allies along! The full programme and timetable are available here.
#NoAbusersOnStage Campaign
Following the C4 Dispatches documentary Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, in which numerous women came forward sharing their experiences of rape and sexual assault by him, we emailed and contacted a number of venues across the UK via social media, urging them to cancel Brand’s scheduled performances of #Bipolarisation as part of our #NoAbusersOnStage campaign. Whilst none of the three venues replied to us, Brand’s promoters announced 2 days later that the rest of the Bipolarisaton tour has been postponed.
#BehindTheLookingGlass fundraiser
Vaishnavi Sundar has been busy working away at her latest documentary Behind the Looking Glass. Aided by the generous donations from numerous feminist and some male allies across the globe, Vaishnavi has been able to create some amazing snippets of film and animation for the upcoming documentary about so-called ‘trans-widows’.
The latest snippet Vaishnavi posted focuses on the great work of Children of Trans (see below). You can find more snippets of #BTLG on Vaishnavi’s ‘X’ account. More information about the fundraiser is available here.
PRESENTATIONS
Hertfordshire County Council
On 4 September Chris gave a presentation to the senior management team about male allyship as part of a half day awareness raising event about male violence against women and girls. Chris started his presentation with an apology for institutional male violence, Individual Male Violence and the lack of response from us men. Afterwards Chris spoke about the importance of moving from caring to doing, gave examples of what was possible, the potential pitfalls of men being involved in challenging male violence and the important principles (borrowed from Michael Flood) necessary to guide the work. The full presentation is available from MACS by request.
On 27 September Chris also took part in the women’s safety scrutiny review for the council. This was an all day event for Councillors “to identify how partners are working to address different forms of Violence against women and girls with a view to formulating cross cutting solutions”. Chris gave a 10 minute presentation on male allyship followed by 10 minutes of questions and attended most of the day, which was very educational. The day featured two presentations from the Alice Ruggles Trust about stalking, as well as presentations from the county council, victim care, the police, the university and the White Ribbon steering group. Chris urged that male allyship needs to be more than a slogan and that wearing ribbons is not enough, instead it needs to be comprehensive and not just a one-off. Chris gave some examples of how other local authorities had tried to engage the different groups of men within the community, through music, sport, faith groups, trade unions and fatherhood.
The most depressing fact of the day was learning of the many months victims of sexual assault have to wait before receiving any counselling, the one thing which most survivors had said was the most useful to them.
EVENTS
London
On 12 September Chris was in London and attended a die-in demonstration at the DESI Arms fair, the largest arms fair in Europe held at the ExCel centre in London with 1,500 exhibitors and attendance up 25% from the last event in 2019. For Chris, attending the event once again highlighted that the links between masculinity and militarism need to be made much more explicit and he hopes that there will be many more anti sexist men at the next arms fair in 2025.
Later that day, Chris attended the launch of a new book called ‘Men Stepping Forward: Leading your organisation on the path to Inclusion‘ by Elisabeth Kelan, professor of Leadership at the University of Essex. The event featured an interesting panel discussion and some great networking, which hopefully will enable MACS to engage and collaborate in more anti-sexist work. The event itself was held at CHIEF, a US led private membership network focussed on connecting and supporting women executive leaders.
Leeds
On 25 September we went to Leeds to take part in a celebration of Denise Fahmy‘s win against the Arts Council England back in June. You can find more information about the case here. We felt extremely privileged to part of this celebration and hear many amazing women speak, including Joanna Cherry, Kate Harris of the LGB Alliance, Heather Binning and of course Denise Fahmy herself.
It was great to be able to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the enormous hard work and dedication of women across the UK in defending freedom of speech and women’s spaces in the last few years.
For us it was also heartening to see quite a few men at the event, which a feminist friend remarked was probably the largest outpouring of male allies she’d ever seen.
LGBA’s Manchester Big Night Out!
On 29 September we travelled to Manchester for the LGB Alliance’s Big Night Out! It was a really great night and we met a whole load of likeminded people. We really recommend keeping an eye out on the LGBA events. This was the second one we attended and it was (again) a really fun night out.
PETITIONING & OTHER SUPPORT
We signed Sex Matters’ letter to Rishi Sunak, askin him to to take urgent action to halt an escalating campaign of violence and intimidation against women in the name of “trans rights” and to urge his government to issue a call for evidence and to commission a rapid review on the impact of extreme transactivism on women’s rights. You can read the letter and sign it here.
Additionally, we signed the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender’s declaration to support their campaign for clearer dialogue, better data collection, evidence and research, and improved treatment options for gender dysphoria.
We also took part in Calderdale Council’s Licensing Of Sex Establishments Consultation, which is open for responses until 11 October thanks to the hard work of WRN Calderdale & Bradford, who were mobilising Calderdale residents to make their views heard.
TRAVEL INSIGHT – HISTORICAL FEMICIDE & CURRENT ACTIVISM IN GERMANY
During our travels in Germany this September, we came across a number of astonishing memorials to women who fell victims to organised femicides. Historical memorials included the very difficult to find and relatively unknown #Frauenpfahl at the #Bodensee in #Konstanz, which commemorates the place where female thieves and adulterers, after bing sewn into bags with animals (e.g. snakes, cats or chickens), were drowned.
We found another difficult to spot and rather small memorial at the #Martinstor in the town of #Freiburg. The plaque named 3 women who were beheaded and burnt as #witches & commemorates all female victims of the ‘witch craze’. A short while later, we stumbled across another memorial, commemorating all victims of femicide under the banner ‘Ni Una Menos’.
Whilst in Konstanz, we also found some graffiti by #CatCallsOfKonstanz, who are part of a youth-led chalk art movement against street harassment called Chalk Back. You can see a video of the graffiti and translation on our ‘X’ feed below.
PRO-FEMINIST DISCUSSION GROUP: HELEN JOYCE – TRANS: WHEN IDEOLOGY MEETS REALITY
This September we read Helen Joyce’s Trans. You can find a write up of our discussion group here.
NEXT DISCUSSION GROUP MEETING
Due to our conference being held in October, the next meeting will take place on Monday 13 November. We will be reading and discussing Hags by Victoria Smith.
To find out more and to join our book group, please email us.
